from the journal Heart
There is plenty of advice for women who
become pregnant not to smoke because of
adverse effects on the fetus. Now British
researchers have linked the combination of
smoking and being overweight while pregnant
with an even greater damaging effect on the
heart of the developing baby. They found
pregnant women who both smoked and were
overweight were more than two and one‐half
times as likely to have a child with a congenital
heart defect as women who either smoked or
were overweight, but not both. The authors
of the study in the online journal Heart say
while the exact cause is not clear, results
indicate that maternal smoking and
overweight may both be involved in the same
pathway that causes congenital heart defects.
The finding add to the growing evidence for
links between smoking and overweight during
pregnancy with various adverse effects on the
fetus.